


Someone You Don't Talk About

by ViiA01



Series: Camellias [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Green Lantern - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, I took many liberties with hanahaki, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25765084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViiA01/pseuds/ViiA01
Summary: For a moment, it seemed like Bruce was going to scold Hal. Maybe pull up a rolling stool and chastise Hal for being stupid as he patched him up.Something warm unfolded in Hal’s chest at the thought-Bruce let his arm go. “You should get the bots to look at it,” he said finally.The warm feeling disappeared, and a fuzzy sort of ache panged in his chest when Bruce turned and walked out of the medbay, back to looking at his tablet.
Relationships: Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan/Carol Ferris (past)
Series: Camellias [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775914
Comments: 21
Kudos: 226





	Someone You Don't Talk About

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to Sounds Just Like a Song. You will need to read that one first to get what’s going on.
> 
> Both titles are from Harry Styles’ songs. Watermelon Sugar for part 1 and Falling for this one.
> 
> Also a side note, I’m well aware that the Star Sapphires have rings now, but this story was based on Justice League: Doom, which portrayed Carol/Star Sapphire as having the old Sapphire crystal as her power source, rather than a ring.
> 
> Enjoy my friends.

Coming back from the dead wasn’t all sunshine and roses. In fact, none of it was.

Hal remembered dying. The white hot pain of being burnt alive by the solar flare, the screaming in his head as the Ring tried it’s best to protect him. He remembers the feeling of being torn apart as the radiation and energy ripped through him.

He remembers floating, something like warmth curled around him. Remembers a voice, soft and light, calling his name.

 _One more time for me_ , it said. _One more time, Hal._

If you had asked Hal a few months ago, what the hardest part of coming back to life would have been, he might have made a joke about taxes and getting a new birth certificate.

In actuality, the hardest part was waking up.

He just… didn’t want to. He was comfortable, warm, and his dreams never tried to kill him. His dad was here, and Hal had been so happy to finally be able to tell his dad about all of the things he had done. To make him proud.

But the longer he stayed, the more out of place he felt.

So he woke up.

* * *

Bruce was different.

Well, all of the Leaguers were.

Savage’s attacks had left the League a bit shaken, not that Hal could blame them. Before Savage, no one had ever come close to beating them, and then all of a sudden all seven of them were incapacitated or worse?

And to know that one of their own had created the plans behind their attacks…

Well.

Hal had expected Bruce to be somewhat sorry at least. He was planning on milking it a little bit, maybe getting Bruce to pony up some money for a new apartment or a fancy car or something.

But Bruce just acted like nothing had happened. In fact, most of the time, he floated around acting as if Hal didn’t even exist.

It was…

Weird.

Whenever Hal suggested something, he expected Bruce to roll his eyes and scoff, maybe make some sarcastic comment or stare at him with that unimpressed look on his face. Bruce had always done that, putting up a fuss just to get a rise out of Hal.

But now Bruce just nodded, then moved on, like Hal hadn’t even said anything at all.

He barely even looked at Hal when Hal spoke and when he did, he had a politely distant look on his face, like Hal was a stranger and a slightly annoying one at that. It reminded Hal of when they had first met, back when the League was new.

But even back then, Bruce had been his caustic, eye rolling self.

And he still was.

With everyone else. But not with Hal.

It stung.

But what hurt worse was that it seemed like Bruce didn’t even want to be friends anymore.

Before Hal died, whenever they would come back from a mission, Hal would make two cups of coffee. Ordinarily, he would find Bruce in the monitor room, pouring over some stupid document and re-watching battle footage.

Hal would tease him and give him the coffee.

And then he’d kick his boots up on the console and Bruce would stare at them passive aggressively for minutes on end.

Maybe they’d talk about Bruce’s kids- how Damian was doing acclimatizing to America, or how Tim’s attempts to get onto the Lacrosse team were going, or how Dick was moving up the ranks in the police force.

Maybe Bruce would ask Hal about the plane designs he had been working on the for the upgrades to the Javelin or the second jet they were going to build. Or maybe he would ask about Hal’s niece and mother- how they were doing, if Helen still wanted to be an astronaut-

But after Hal’s first mission back with the team, none of that happened.

Hal made the coffee and went to the monitor room.

And Bruce told him to leave.

There was no passive aggressive sighing about Hal’s munching on cookies or his boots up on the console. No stories about Damian’s ever growing menagerie of animals, no questions about Helen or Jessica Jordan. No questions about Hal’s designs.

And when Hal had asked after Damian, he had been met with a loud silence.

Maybe that was what hurt the most.

* * *

Hal batted away one of the medical bots poking him with a needle. “No, no, sutures,” he said. “Stit-ches!”

It beeped at him happily and then trundled off to the corner of the room to start destroying one of the cupboards in its search for stitches. The bots were Barry’s idea, for when the Watchtower didn’t have a trained surgeon on board but some of them were a bit dopey and ended up causing more chaos than they helped.

Like the one trying to tend to the gash in Hal’s arm.

The doors to the medbay opened and Bruce strode in, head buried in the tablet in his hand.

Hal grinned. “Hiya Spooky!” he called.

Bruce just grunted in reply, not even looking up.

Hal waved his arm around. “You mind giving me a hand?” he asked with a smile. “Got it saving your ass, so you kind of owe me.”

“The bots can do it,” Bruce said, fussing around in the drawer. He didn’t even look at Hal, frowning as he looked off to the side, scanning the rest of the room.

Hal lowered his arm slowly, a little confused by the brush off. Bruce used to love coming into the med bay to scold Hal for his ‘reckless antics and harebrained schemes’ and he would pick and poke at Hal until Hal let him bandage him up.

It had been funny to Hal, watching Bruce, the big bad bat of Gotham, fuss around like a broody mother hen.

“Eh, they always give me-”

“I told him to restock the bandages,” Bruce muttered, moving away from the drawer to root around in the cupboard over the sink.

Bruce’s inattention didn’t even seem malicious or rude. It just seemed like Bruce hadn’t even heard Hal speak, like the bandages were a more important matter than Hal. “… Ouch,” he managed to say after a few moments. “I’m bleeding out here, Spooky, and you’re worried about Barry forgetting to replace the bandages.”

Bruce looked up and frowned. He seemed to notice the blood on Hal’s arm and he walked over. He took Hal’s arm in his hand, turning it over gingerly. “How long has this been like this?” he asked, frown audible in his voice.

“Few hours, didn’t notice during the fight,” Hal said.

For a moment, it seemed like Bruce was going to scold Hal. Maybe pull up a rolling stool and chastise Hal for being stupid as he patched him up.

Something warm unfolded in Hal’s chest at the thought-

Bruce let his arm go. “You should get the bots to look at it,” he said finally.

The warm feeling disappeared, and a fuzzy sort of ache panged in his chest when Bruce turned and walked out of the medbay, back to looking at his tablet.

* * *

“Hey, you want some boiled dirt?” Hal asked, holding the cup out to Bruce. He wasn’t sure what Bruce’s problem was, but Hal wasn’t the type to give up easily and dammit, even after the medbay, he missed their chats.

Bruce looked up from where he was hunched over the tablet in front of him. There was a browning smoothie next to him and he had a serious case of five o clock shadow going on.

Hal grinned, nudging the cup against Bruce’s head tauntingly.

Bruce snatched it away from him. “Child,” he huffed. “I’m busy.”

“Yeah, yeah, on your secret plans for world domination, I know, I know,” Hal said, sliding into the seat opposite Bruce. “How are those going? You built your giant death ray yet?”

“Death ray,” Bruce scoffed, “please.”

Hal sipped his coffee. It really did taste like boiled dirt. Why Bruce hadn’t installed a good coffee machine, Hal could never figure out. He always assumed it was because Bruce was a sadist who enjoyed making everyone suffer through shitty coffee. “Hey, you have an underground lair and dress like a bat, what else am I supposed to think?”

Bruce grunted, picking up his tablet. “Did you have a reason for talking to me, Hal? Or were you just slacking off again?”

“I don’t slack off!”

“Then where are my plans for the new Javelin?” Bruce demanded.

Hal choked on his next sip of coffee, coughing it up all over Bruce’s tablet.

Bruce pulled his tablet away with thin lips and a huff.

Hal grinned. Bruce hadn’t bought up the new Javelin designs since Hal had come back and with how oddly Bruce had been acting, ignoring him and doing his best impression of the T-1000, Hal hadn’t been able to bring them up.

He had been working on them, though. And he was proud of the new theoretical efficiencies he had been able to squeeze out of the engines.

“Well,” Hal said, waving a hand to pull the designs out of the pocket dimension he kept his Lantern in. He hadn’t been ‘resurrected’ in a legal sense yet, so he hadn’t had a chance to get a new place, so he had to keep his things in there or risk Barry going through them on the Watchtower. “I think you’ll love this…”

Bruce leaned forward, tilting his head as he examined the rough sketches and equations Hal had sketched out on some printer paper.

“I think we could even upgrade the old girl to have these new engines,” Hal said, pointing to the schematics for the original Javelin. “We’d have to do some stress testing and I’m not sure if there’ll be enough clearance between the ground and bottom of the new engine, but I’m sure we can make it work.”

“It’s a craft meant to be able to fly through space, Hal, we need to better than ‘make it work’,” Bruce said dryly. “But I see your po-” Bruce broke off suddenly, freezing in place.

Hal raised an eyebrow, lowering his coffee cup. “What?”

Bruce was staring at the coffee cup Hal had given like it had personally offended him. “I can’t do this,” he said suddenly, voice practically a growl.

“Do what-”

Bruce shoved himself up, knocking the cup over and spilling coffee all over the table. It soaked into the tablet and Hal’s designed, ruining them both.

“Hey!” Hal shouted, jumping up to try and save the drawings he had spent hours on. “Spooky, what the hell-”

He broke off because Bruce was already gone, practically running out of the dining room.

Hal stood there, holding his ruined drawings.

He didn’t know what he had done. One minute they were talking like nothing had ever changed between them and then the next, Bruce couldn’t get away from him fast enough.

* * *

The giant weird monster that was somehow made of all the elements at once, like some sort of bad cartoon, screeched angrily as they pulled it to the ground. It flailed angrily, swiping at Diana and J’onn angrily with it’s arm made of fire.

Hal encased it’s fist in a shield, starving the fire of oxygen.

The monster roared at him, surging upwards.

Clark had less finesse than Hal, simply bodyslamming it back into the ground with a loud crack.

It took all of them to hold it down but eventually they managed to bleed off most of the excess radiation it had absorbed from the power plant it had gone through. Hal’s Ring didn’t like the excess radiation any more than Clark did, but they really had no other choice.

By the end of it, even Clark was tired.

Victor just fell over where he had been standing, complaining about a headache and Diana had patted his head gently.

Hal noticed Bruce limping away, one arm around his side.

And even if Bruce had been acting like an asshole for the last few months, he was still injured. And Hal knew Bruce. He would never get his injuries looked at, not until he made sure everyone else was safe and clean up was well underway.

“Hey,” Hal called, flying after Bruce. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Bruce looked at him and then away.

“Oi, I’m talking to you!” Hal demanded, grabbing Bruce’s shoulder. He was exhausted after chasing the element monster for four hours and two states and he had no patience left for Bruce’s bullshit. “Don’t ignore me-”

“Don’t touch me!” Bruce snarled, throwing Hal’s hand off.

After their disastrous talk in the dining room, when Bruce had run out on him, Hal hadn’t seen Bruce much.

He didn’t come around the Watchtower anymore and when he did, he was always furious, but only with Hal. He ignored everything Hal said and nothing Hal said got a rise out of him. He just stared straight through Hal now, like Hal wasn’t worthy of his attention.

He didn’t know what he had done to deserve being treated like garbage.

But he was getting real sick of it.

“What the fuck is your problem with me all of a sudden?!” Hal demanded furiously, all of the rage and confusion at Bruce’s behaviour bubbling up.

Bruce scowled fiercely. “Go home, Lantern,” he snapped. “You’re no good to me like this.”

“No, we’re having this out, Spooky,” Hal hissed. “You can’t even say hi when I come back from the fucking dead- Instead, all you do is override all of my commands and dismiss all of my ideas- the table is fucking round, Batman!”

“You suggest plans that end with you charging into a battle, half-cocked and with little regard for your life, or the lives of people around you!” Bruce snarled back furiously. “All you’re interested in is inflating your own ego-”

Hal punched him in the mouth, hard enough that Bruce reeled back, stumbling over the ruined road. Fury made his hands shake at the insult. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he hissed. “Don’t you fucking accuse me of putting my ego ahead of innocent lives-”

Bruce’s head whipped around. “When have you ever cared about who you hurt, Lantern?!” he demanded, voice dripping with hatred. “When have you ever cared about anything but yourself?!”

Hal saw red. “When have I cared?!” he demanded furiously. “I fucking died, you piece of shit!” Hal shouted, lunging at Bruce.

He wanted to pummel Bruce’s face into the concrete.

“I died for the this planet! And I would do it again-”

“That’s the problem!” Bruce roared, catching Hal’s fist, lip split and leaking blood down his chin. His chest heaved. “That’s the fucking problem with you! You don’t give a damn about the people you leave behind when you throw yourself into the fray-”

“One life for millions?!” Hal exclaimed, unable to believe what he was hearing. “There’s no math there, none! If I had to die to save millions, then so be it-”

“What about your family?!” Bruce shouted. “What about us?! What about me?!”

“What about you?!” Hal screamed back. “ _What about you_?! Since when do _you_ care about me?! All you do is insult and berate me-”

“Enough!”

Hal caught a glimpse of gold and black and then he was shoved away, hard enough to make his boots skid along the ground.

Diana stood between them, eyes blazing with anger. “That is enough!”

Hal wasn’t done with Bruce Wayne and his sanctimonious, superior attitude. “Get out of the way, Diana.”

Bruce glowered at Hal.

Diana put a hand on Hal’s chest, shoving him back a step. “Enough, Lantern,” she commanded. “We should continue this discussion after clean up, back in Headquarters.”

Hal glanced in the direction her eyes had darted and saw that their argument gotten them an audience, who already had their phones out.

Bruce’s face smoothed over, and Hal hated him for it. He hated that stupid fucking blank look, like Bruce was some kind of stupid robot-

“Let them see,” Hal hissed vindictively. He wanted Bruce to feel just a little bit of what he had made Hal feel. He wanted Bruce to feel small and stupid and useless. He wanted Bruce to hurt.

Because Hal was hurt. God it hurt so goddamn much to have Bruce look straight through him, like he wasn’t even a person. It hurt that Bruce didn’t drink Hal’s shitty coffee anymore. He missed their late night talks, missed Bruce asking him about Carol and Tom, and Hal’s work in the Corps, missed the companionable silence they fell into on the Watchtower, just watching the Earth below.

They were supposed to be _friends_. Equals, teammates, allies-

And Bruce just looked at Hal like he was some sort of annoying stranger, so distant and cold and unfeeling.

God it made Hal angry. Because it shouldn’t hurt this much.

He wanted Bruce to feel that way, even just for a little bit.

“Stop it,” Diana ordered. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Lantern-”

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Hal snapped, irritated by her intervention and patronizing tone. He was even more pissed off by the sight of the growing, staring crowd, watching with bug eyes and phones.

“There are things you don’t know. But it’s not the place or the time to talk about them,” Diana said placatingly. “Let’s finish clean up and then back at headquarters we can-”

Hal glared at Bruce, who looked as impassive as a stone wall and it only made the unfairness and rage burn even hotter in his chest. “Don’t even worry about it,” he said over Diana, “next time I’ll be a good little soldier and stay out of the way of the real heroes. Maybe I’ll even die. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Bats?”

Bruce flinched as if he had been struck.

Diana recoiled. “Hal-”

Hal ripped his arm away from her and lifted into the air. The Ring felt like a brand on his finger. “Go play mediator somewhere else, Diana. I’m not interested.”

* * *

Hal didn’t stay long at the Watchtower, just long enough to give his report.

Clark had said nothing about the bruises on Hal’s face, just like he hadn’t said anything about the ones on Bruce’s. He had just looked at Diana for a long time, looking almost disappointed and sad.

Hal didn’t want to see any of it.

Bruce was staring blankly at the tablet and Hal wanted to hit him again. Maybe then the stupid bastard would feel something then.

As soon as Clark was done talking, Hal was out of there. He wanted to fly- burn off some steam. Maybe hit something, blow something up.

He felt restless and the anger at Bruce’s treatment of him only made it worse.

“Hal!” Diana called.

Hal kept walking. He could outfly her, but not in the Watchtower, not unless he wanted to kill everyone.

“Hal, please!” Diana called, catching his arm, and pulling him around to face her.

“What, Diana? Come to scold me on behalf of poor, downtrodden Batsy?” he sneered. “Don’t worry, I learnt my lesson-”

Diana’s eyes flared with anger. “Enough of this self-pity, Hal,” she snapped. “I’m sick of it.”

“Yeah? Well I’m sick of being treated like less than by your pal in there, so why don’t you talk to him about playing nice and maybe I will.”

Diana opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, face conflicted. “I’ve been… untruthful,” she said quietly. “But I cannot, it good conscience allow this to continue.”

Hal wished Diana was a bad person, because honestly, he couldn’t take anymore pity right now. “Well then you’re talking to the wrong person.”

“I know,” she said. “And so are you.”

* * *

“You the Red Hood?”

“No, I’m the fairy hood mother.”

There was a joke in there, but Hal wasn’t really in the mood to find it. And he had a feeling it would go over his head anyway. “Well, I’m looking for him, so if you see him, point him my way,” he said.

The helmeted vigilante looked up at him. The helmet was unreadable, a dim line of light pulsing around the rim of it every so often. “What do you want with him?” Helmet head asked finally. “He doesn’t know any Lanterns.”

“A mutual friend said he had something I needed to hear,” Hal said. “Diana Prince.”

Helmet head stiffened. “Well if Wonder Woman wants me to talk to you, who am I to say no?”

* * *

Helmet Head turned out to be Jason Todd. The one Robin that had died and come back wrong, if the internet rumours were to be believed.

Hal didn’t.

He had heard stories about how the second Robin died. Anyone would come back angry from that. The only reason Hal didn’t was because he died a hero, not a victim.

“Heard your death didn’t take,” Jason drawled, tossing back his drink in one lazy movement. “Neither did mine.”

“Lucky us.”

“That’s a word people don’t use when talking about me,” Jason said. “Lucky. Heh, maybe I’ll get a jacket with that printed on it.”

“Get one for me too,” Hal joked, holding out his beer bottle in a toast. “We can make a club.”

Jason clinked his against Hal’s. “To technically being zombies.”

They drank in silence for a few minutes. Gotham smelt kind of like wet dog and there was an ever present sense of urgency in the air. Gotham was bigger than Coast City and the lights here drowned out the night sky, reducing the dark sky to an ugly mix of blue and yellow.

“How much did Diana tell you?” Jason asked finally. He tossed his empty bottle off the side of the building.

Hal heard it smash on the street below. “Not much. Just that I should talk to you before I write Bruce off completely.”

Jason let out a sigh. “She let me do the heavy lifting, then,” he said. “Can’t say I blame her.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well it’s not a very nice story, that’s why,” Jason said easily. A beat passed, the city moving around them. “You know what Hanahaki is?”

Hal frowned. “The flower disease?” he asked. It was rare and he had never met anyone that had it. It had mostly died out in the 1700’s. There were one or two cases every year, but they were always resolved quickly with surgery or marriage or whatever. “The one that kills those with unrequited feelings?”

“That’s the one,” Jason said with a grim smile that was more of a grimace.

“Why do you ask?” Hal asked.

“Because you’ll never guess who had it,” Jason said, seemingly enjoying dragging this out. He looked young, but there was something dark and angry in his eyes that told Hal he had seen more than he should have at his age.

Hal was quiet. Jason Todd wore a bat. Jason Todd had been Robin, the partner of the Bat. It was easy to connect the dots. “Bruce did.”

Jason’s smile softened around the edges, but only fractionally. “Yup. You know who for?”

Hal didn’t answer, looking away from the jaded blue eyes of the young man in front of him. Something in his stomach rebelled at the idea that Bruce would ever have feelings for him- he had just spend the last few months treating Hal like dirt.

“You,” Jason said. “I mean I guess it didn’t matter in the end, right, cause you went and got yourself killed in a heroic blaze of glory and Bruce never got the chance to say anything.”

“That isn’t my fault,” Hal said defensively. And it wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault Bruce had never said anything. He wasn’t a mind reader and he couldn’t be expected to know that Bruce was suffering in silence, or that he had feelings for Hal.

“Never said it was,” Jason said, tipping his beer at Hal.

Hal supposed it was the closest thing to an apology he was going to get.

Jason snorted to himself, a bitter look on his face. “And you know… the thing is, is I don’t even know if Bruce would have told anyone,” he said quietly. “He only told me because he had a coughing fit in the middle of a mission and damn near hacked up a whole tree.”

The rooftop was quiet for a moment. Hal didn’t know what to think.

“I helped him with the surgery,” Jason said bitterly. “Figures an emotionally repressed fuck like him would get fuckin’ Hanahaki.”

Hal nursed his drink. “Take it you think it’s pathetic?”

“ _Pathetic?_ ” Jason scoffed, “You got that right- it’s fucking pathetic and embarrassing and- and… beautiful,” he murmured, face falling in such a way that looked a lot like longing.

That had been the last thing Hal had expected out of the mouth of this angry, jaded young man. “Getting a disease that’ll kill you if someone doesn’t return your feelings, is beautiful? It’s fucked up, is what it is.”

“It’s beautiful _because_ it’s a tragedy,” Jason said. “I suppose it fits in with the rest of his pathetic, tragic backstory, huh?”

Hal had to admit, there was a part of all of this. Hanahaki, a disease about unrequited feelings and Bruce, a man with repressed emotions, that seemed very funny and just a little bit cruel. For all of Bruce’s stoic nature, Hal didn’t think he was very unfeeling at all.

Jason laughed, almost angry. “Guess my doctor friend wasn’t as good as she said, cause the old fuck has it bad again. He’s coughing and splutterin’ all over the manor. He hides it, because he’s a nervy old man, but I’ve seen those fuckin’ flowers.”

Hal looked up in horror at the words, a pit opening in his stomach.

“I know it’s not Selina, since she won’t come near the old man. He doesn’t let anything slide now. Says he’s like he was when I-”

Hal saw Jason’s lips twist, but he was too busy trying to imagine Bruce coughing up flowers in that overgrown, dank cave of his.

Jason sighed heavily. “And it’s not Talia, ‘cause she hasn’t gloated about it. And it’s not Diana, because she’s got that Steve guy.”

The rundown rooftop was quiet, as quiet as a city like Gotham could be. A siren split the air somewhere in the distance.

“And so I’m trying to figure out what changed or if the old man has just lost it and actually fallen in love the with Joker and _then_ I get what changed,” Jason continued. He shoved his beer away, eyes like chips of ice.

“Jason-”

“You,” Jason snarled. “ _You came back_.”

* * *

Hal sat on the nose of the test plane sitting on the tarmac of the Ferris Air Base, staring up at the washed out night sky. It was one of the things he had grown to dislike about living in the big city. There were always so many stars in space and down here, he couldn’t see any of them.

“You know,” Carol said quietly from behind him, nervous, “usually they send a guy with a gun to deal with intruders. Especially glowing ones.”

“Lots of guys with lots of guns,” Hal corrected. He turned, seeing her lingering awkwardly by the tail of the plane. “Hi Carebear.”

She smiled sadly. “Hi Hal.”

“Going to turn pink and try to kill me again?” he asked, regretting it as soon as he opened his mouth.

Carol smiled shakily, biting down hard on her bottom lip. Her eyes screwed up in that way they always had, like she was trying hard not to cry. “Not today, Hally.”

“That’s good,” Hal said, wondering if things had gotten awkward between them before she had tried to kill him or after he had come back to life. He turned away, remembering their furious, painful break up and her tears. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

He heard her clambering up onto the back of the plane. There was a clang as she tossed her fancy stilettos onto the ground. “I deserved it.”

Hal stared at the sky as she sat down next to him. He swung his legs, brought back to the days when they would sit on the wings of the test planes while Mr. Ferris and his dad talked shop at the other end of the hangar. “No you didn’t.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Carol said immediately.

They lapsed into silence because Hal genuinely didn’t know what to say to her. They hadn’t spoken since his resurrection, mostly because Hal didn’t know how to broach what had gone down between them.

How did one start the conversation with the woman who tried to kill you while under the influence of a murderous space rock?

“I missed you,” Hal admitted.

Carol sniffed and rubbed her face harshly. “I missed you too, Hal,” she said quietly. “A lot.”

For a few minutes they sat in silence and Hal could almost imagine that nothing bad had ever happened between them. He wished that they were still best friends and that he hadn’t ever broken her heart so callously.

“I’m sorry,” Carol said, taking a deep, shuddering breath after she did. “I’m so sorry, Hal.”

He glanced at her and saw her eyes were wet. “You said that already.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Well I thought you did,” Hal said with a shrug. He’d never been angry with Carol in the first place. He had deserved her anger and scorn after the way he had treated her. Dating and leading her on for months on end, dancing around her questions about their future.

Their breakup had been messy. She had wanted a family, kids, him to stop playing space cop for months on end, to get his shit together. He hadn’t wanted any of that and he still didn’t.

“I know you were sorry. You don’t need to tell me,” Hal continued.

“I did,” Carol said firmly. “You deserve to hear that I’m sorry for what I did, Hal. I’m sorry that I let the Sapphire control me, that I attacked you and tried to kill you. I’m sorry that I didn’t walk away from the temptation of power. I should have known better, but I didn’t and I’m sorry.”

Hal smiled, biting his lip at the serious look on her face. Carol had always been good with words but that was… “Did you practice that in the mirror before you came over here?”

Carol punched him, cheeks reddening. “Idiot!”

“You did, didn’t you?”

Her smile was begrudging, and her tears were back again. “God you really haven’t changed,” she sobbed, turning away to hide her crying.

For a few minutes, they sat in silence. It was kind of nice, it reminded Hal of all the times they had spent camped out under the stars as kids. Things were easier back then and he almost wished he could go back in time and do her right.

Almost.

“Me and Bats got into it,” he said finally.

“I saw,” Carol said gently.

Hal scoffed. “All over the fucking news, huh?”

“Yeah,” Carol sighed. “You two looked like you were about to kill each other- I always knew you didn’t get on but…”

“But,” Hal agreed. “But, but, but. Always a fuckin’ but with Bats.” 

“Oh Hal,” Carol said quietly. “You never knew how to do things the easy way, did you?”

“I didn’t do shit!” Hal said loudly. He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I came back to life and instead of being happy to see me, the bastard treats me like furniture. He looks at me like… like he doesn’t know who I am.”

His best friend didn’t say anything, and Hal supposed she was wondering what she was supposed to say.

Part of him wanted her to call Bruce a piece of shit. “Have you heard of a disease called Hanahaki?” Hal asked instead.

Carol stiffened. “You don’t have it-”

“No,” Hal said. “No I’m fine, Carol. Bats… Bats had it.”

Carol was quiet. “Okay?” she said after a moment.

His skill with words seemed to have left him, because he couldn’t think of a damn thing about how to start explaining the mess he found himself in.

“Oh…” Carol realized. “He… Oh Hal… He had it before you died, didn’t he?”

Hal tipped his head back with a sigh. “He got the surgery to remove the infection,” and wasn’t that a funny way of talking about feelings, “and Google tells me, that if you do that, the feelings can’t come back or something. You’ll never love that person again.”

Carol listened quietly, twisting her parents wedding rings around her index finger.

“But uh…” Hal rubbed his head. “Well, I talked to one of Bruce’s little batbrats a few days ago and he seems to think I’m to blame for Bruce’s second fight with the disease.”

She didn’t say anything, only staring at him with a long, pensive look.

“What?!” Hal asked, slightly creeped out by the staring.

Carol shuffled closer, leaning on his arm. “You know the Sapphire wasn’t all bad. Flying was nice, the outfit made me feel sexy, the energy boost-”

“The murderous rampages-Ow-”

“And it told me things,” Carol continued after elbowing him. “Well, it tried to. I mean, it doesn’t exactly speak American English, but it got the point across.”

“Are you going to?”

She elbowed him again, rolling her eyes. “One of the things it told me, was that humans try way too hard to control their emotions. We think it makes us strong and sometimes, it does, but only for a little bit.”

Hal glanced at her, wondering where this was going. “Okay…?”

Carol sighed. “Emotions are complicated, Hal, you don’t need me to tell you that. They don’t just go away because we had a surgery, or we want them to or someone dies.”

Coast City was pretty quiet in comparison to Gotham. Hal could even hear the ocean if he strained hard enough.

“Love doesn’t just go away because we want it to,” Carol said pointedly. “That’s not how it works.”

“I mean, medical literature-”

“Medical literature from the 1700’s, Hal, or the one or two cases the world gets a year,” Carol interrupted. “One case a year isn’t a sample population, its an anomaly. You can’t get reliable conclusions from that, especially not about how the disease behaves.”

“So what are you saying?”

She took a deep breath. “You said that Bruce loved you before you died and then got the feelings removed and then somehow, despite the surgery which is supposed to remove those feelings, he’s fallen in love with you again?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m saying,” Carol murmured, “maybe he never stopped.”

* * *

Hal flew into the Cave. It really was a feat of engineering, all that computer equipment, all of the gadgets and finicky electronics, down in this musty, damp cave. Somehow, Bruce had made it work and he had done it on his own because there was no way the paranoid bastard had bought in outside contractors.

Bruce was standing by a steel table, staring down at a mess of a deconstructed android. He didn’t look up as Hal approached. “I don’t remember inviting you.”

“You never invite me anywhere anymore,” Hal retorted and for a brief moment it felt normal. Here was the part where he would normally summon a green chair and kick back as Bruce snarked and snipped at him. This time, he drifted closer, landing by the table. “Rough night?”

Bruce still had the cowl on. “What do you want, Lantern?” he asked and there was just a hint of a sigh.

Ouch. “What happened to Hal?” Hal asked, leaning on the table, because he knew it would piss Bruce off.

Predictably, and there was a word that Bruce would hate, Bruce prodded Hal’s hand away. “That’s evidence,” he said waspishly. “And I’ve told you countless times that names in the field are a danger we cannot afford.”

Hal raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, in the field being the operative phrase there, Spooky. We’re not in the field- we’re in your mancave. No one is going to be listening in here,” he asked, gesturing around Bruce’s Fort Knox of a cave. “This place is the most secure place on the planet-”

“Is it?!” Bruce hissed, turning on Hal with a fiery scowl. “Is it really?!”

Hal recoiled, raising his hands in surrender. “Whoa, Spooky, it was a joke.”

Bruce flinched and took a step away before turning back to his table. “ _Leave._ ”

Looking at Bruce, Hal could see the tension across the line of his shoulders. He wasn’t quite sure when he had gotten that good at reading Bruce. Usually that was Clark’s job. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t think I will.”

“Leave!”

“Why?” Hal asked. “Why are you suddenly afraid to talk freely in here, Bruce? I know for a fact this place is so well shielded that even Clark couldn’t hear what we said or see us. So why are we no longer allowed to use names?”

“Are you deliberately obtuse or do you just enjoy making me angry?!” Bruce hissed venomously, turning on Hal with a hateful scowl.

Hal blinked, a little put out by the intense reaction.

Bruce’s shoulders were a sharp line of tension. “Mirror Master infiltrated the cave, he got in here and he took top secret information. How can we be sure that it won’t happen again? That they didn’t leave a backdoor in my systems?” he demanded, furious and cold. “Can you tell me, for certain that there is no one listening? That our identities won’t be compromised again?! _Can you_?!”

It was a shockingly open reaction, one Hal hadn’t seen from Bruce in a very long time. Before his death, it was so damn easy to rile Bruce up and Hal remembered being on the receiving end of more than a few of Bruce’s scathing lectures after a fight.

This wasn’t like that.

In fact, Hal had only seen Bruce this angry when the Batclan or whatever they were calling themselves, had disobeyed League orders and fought alongside the League during a mission.

Bruce’s shoulders shook and his jaw worked. The part of his face that Hal could see, was taut and the line of his mouth looked a lot like fear.

And suddenly Hal understood. “Do you… do you think I blame you for what happened?” he asked incredulously.

Bruce turned away sharply, cape snapping dramatically around his ankles. “I stand by what I did,” he said.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Bruce’s shoulder’s rose, just a hint, but it was a sure sign that he was upset. Hal had seen it time and time again, normally when a fight had dragged on too long or a civilian died. Or when Hal threw himself into the fray without thinking and got hurt.

Hal stared at Bruce’s back, wondering what else he had missed chasing glory.

“They were meant to incapacitate,” Bruce said finally, so quiet Hal almost didn’t hear it. “Not kill.”

It seemed like maybe Hal wasn’t the only one with a guilt complex. But then, a guilty conscience went well with Bruce’s aesthetic. “Every day, Bruce, we go out there and we know that we could die. That just comes with the territory.”

“Have you always been this thick?” Bruce snarled. “I know I could die but it wasn’t _me_ who died as a result of those plans, Hal, it was _you_. I’ve made peace with my own mortality but no one else was meant to die as a result of my actions.”

“You mean Vandal Savage’s actions.” Hal corrected, ignoring the insult. It had taken him a while, but he had learnt that Bruce’s insults were usually teasing or, like in this case, because Bruce was afraid and hurt.

The look Bruce gave him was absolute poison. 

“You said it yourself. You created those plans to incapacitate us, not kill us,” Hal reminded him. “ _Savage_ changed those plans, Bruce. He was the one who made them plans to kill. That wasn’t you.”

“I handed him the gun,” Bruce snapped. “Does it matter who pulled the trigger?”

“God you’re so dramatic, you know that?” Hal groaned, rolling his eyes and leaning on Bruce’s table of evidence again. “He’s a big boy. He can shoulder the blame for what he did. He did this, not you.”

Bruce glared him and walked away very deliberately, stalking back to the computer. He tapped away on it with short, jerky movements. “Leave. I won’t ask again.”

Hal didn’t leave. If there was one thing that Hal was good at, it was being a stubborn bastard. And not even Batman could outlast him. So instead, Hal just leaned his hip on Bruce’s metal table and folded his arms.

Bruce’s shoulder’s tightened but he refused to break the silence.

That was fine with Hal. He had spent years in the military and done god knew how many negotiations with John as a Green Lantern. He knew how to use silence to get what he wanted.

And five minutes later, he did.

Bruce’s shoulders loosened and his head dipped, just a little bit, barely noticeable to someone who wasn’t watching.

“I haven’t forgiven you,” Hal said loudly.

Bruce’s jaw clenched, hard enough that Hal could see the muscle bulging against the skin.

“I don’t need to because I _never blamed you in the first place_ ,” Hal said in exasperation. “I was angry because you went behind our backs, because you didn’t trust us but for fucks sake, Bruce I’m not that much of an idiot! I worked for the United States military, I know what unchecked power and lack of oversight looks like.”

The words echoed around the cave, frightening the bats nesting on the craggy stalactites above them.

“I know that it was necessary,” Hal admitted begrudgingly. “I don’t like it, but I know it was necessary.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“What?”

“I got you killed.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit. I got _myself_ killed,” Hal corrected sharply. “Don’t take away my choice, Bruce. I _chose_ to go out there that day, to hold the shield longer than was safe. I chose to do those things, knowing I could die.”

Bruce was silent, shoulders hunched as he tapped away on the keyboard.

“You don’t get to take the credit for that. That was all me. No Batman, no Superman, just the best superhero in the universe,” Hal said, gesturing at his own chest grandly. “Me.” 

That got him a scoff.

“Hey, hey, it’s not every day you get a fucking monument to yourself in DC!” Hal insisted.

“A monument to your own ego, perhaps.” Bruce muttered.

“And what a handsome ego, it is,” Hal said. In truth, he didn’t like the statue all that much. It looked wrong because it was just a white marble, alone on the plinth. It didn’t really seem like it was supposed to be Green Lantern at all. It was just some washed out version that had the Lantern symbol on its chest. “But Bruce?”

The side of Bruce’s jaw twitched, just a little.

“I never blamed you,” Hal repeated, trying to temper the irritation in his voice. “The others never blamed you. Not J’onn, not Diana, not Barry- none of them blamed you for what happened. How could we?”

Bruce had stopped typing, the screen displaying something about shipping manifests and employee logs. Hal could see him listening, through the half turn his head made, through the tenseness in his back and arms.

Hal drifted over to the computer, landing next to Bruce. As he did, he saw the bin of camelias tucked under the desk. There was no blood, only the faintest scent of lemongrass.

Bruce saw him looking and shifting, cape hiding the bin from view. “What do you want, Hal?” he asked finally, voice just a little bit desperate. “Why are you here?”

“Those Camellias for me?” Hal asked instead.

Bruce jerked.

Hal waited for a moment.

He had never wanted a relationship. Because the thought of being tied down to one place, to one person, just seemed so goddamned restrictive and boring. And over time, it became that he couldn’t maintain one because he couldn’t inflict his life on a civilian and because he would be away for weeks or months on end and that wasn’t fair.

And then it morphed into the fact that Hal was just a man. With an old jacket and authority issues. What could he offer that someone else couldn’t?

But Bruce already knew him better than anyone. Knew what he was getting into.

Bruce finally removed the cowl.

And under it, he looked like shit. Craggy and old, far older than he actually was. There were dark circles under his eyes, his skin was even paler than normal, and his eyes were bloodshot. It looked like he hadn’t slept or eaten or seen the sun in months.

Bruce looked at him, more vulnerable than Hal had ever seen. It was a strange look, to see a stripped back version of Bruce Wayne.

It made him look his age for once, not the old, middle aged version of himself he liked to pretend he was.

“I had the surgery,” he breathed.

Hal waited.

For once, Hal got to see Bruce nervous. “I was told my feelings were gone,” Bruce’s lips twitched. “And yet…”

Hal wondered how long he had missed the signs. Looking back, he could see them clear as day. Bruce hanging around after a fight to badger him about injuries, Bruce joining him in the breakroom for coffee, Bruce tell him short stories about his children…

“I apologise,” Bruce murmured. “I won’t let it get in the way of our working relationship.”

Maybe Hal wasn’t the only stupid one. Diana always did say that every man in the Justice League had heads harder than the average diamond. “You know, I think I was half in love with you before I died, Bruce and that hasn’t changed. The only thing that _has_ changed is that, _now_ , I can admit it.”

Bruce looked at him, face creasing into an incredulous frown.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Hal said.

Bruce didn’t say anything for a long time. Hal thought it was the first time he had seen Bruce unsure of something and it wasn’t something he particularly liked. “I got the feelings _removed_.” Bruce said finally, the words almost exploding from his chest, as if he was trying to push Hal away.

Hal shrugged. “After I died,” he reminded Bruce. “What, were you going to die for me, Bruce? Fuck that, I don’t want you to die for me.”

The Cave was quiet. Even the bats had stopped their screeching.

“I’d much rather you were alive.” Hal said. “Because it means I can…”

Bruce let him crowd close, looking as if he was holding himself back by a strand of self-control. Up close, Bruce’s eyes were more than just plain blue, flecked with grey and brown.

It wasn’t like the world exploded with sparks or there were fireworks or any of that bullshit when Hal touched Bruce’s face. It was slow and right, and so very long overdue. “… do that,” Hal murmured, tilting his head as Bruce’s eyes fluttered ever so slightly. “And-”

Bruce shuddered when Hal kissed him.

The Batsuit was hard and honestly, rather cold when Hal stepped in close. It was a little bit like a leaning up against a statue, especially since Bruce was rigid and tense.

For a moment, it seemed like Bruce wasn’t going to kiss him back, but then all of a sudden, it was like all of the fight went out of him.

He stumbled into Hal, hands almost hesitant as he held Hal’s arms.

The kiss was slow, gentle. There was none of the furious heat and passion Hal might have expected from a control freak like Bruce. It was a slow burn, like the embers of a fire, one that made Hal feel full and warm.

Hal pulled back and Bruce made a choked noise before catching himself.

He stared back at Hal, hands still cupping the backs of Hal’s arms.

Hal had always thought the old adage about staring at someone like water in a desert, was bullshit. But the way Bruce was looking at him wasn’t lusty hunger, it was something far deeper. And some part of Hal recoiled at such a blatant display of longing.

Another part relished it. People had looked at him like that before, but none of them had ever been Bruce Wayne.

“Hiya Spooky,” Hal murmured.

**Author's Note:**

> ITS FINISHED.
> 
> AFTER SEVENTY FOUR YEARS.
> 
> I kinda fucked up the pacing in the first part as you may be able to tell. The very last scene between Bruce and Hal was actually the very first thing I wrote for this little project and it meant I had to build the rest of the world around it, meaning the rest of the story suffered just a bit.
> 
> this year has been so long istg i've aged forty years
> 
> one last thing, should i be a petty bitch and delete one of my stories off fanfiction net? cause they are some passive aggressive little gremlins over there, good lord. 140000 words in 8 months and literally all i get is passive aggressive 'update???'
> 
> this why no one wants to write for the naruto fandom, lordy.


End file.
